Fish collars

[Big Mike]

I kept a nice rockfish today for a friend who can’t fish but loves rockfish. For a long time I’ve done the classic fillet and throw away the head. Today I decided to cut the collar out as well. I got it out fairly easily but left with the pectoral and pelvic fins attached to it. I didn’t see a way to remove them that wouldn’t sacrifice a lot of the meat, so kept them attached and assume once cooked you can pull them free. Anyone have experience cleaning the collar on a rockfish that might deal with those fins.

[J.A. Veil]

Mike -

I don't know if this video helps or not. Jessica is on the Native Pro Staff team and lives in Mississippi.

https://www.facebook.com/southmskaya...135354016/?t=2.

[Slobber Bob]

You are correct in that there is no way to cut the fins out without sacrificing a bunch of meat. The bones connected to those fins are all oddly shaped with different angled surfaces you'd never be able to run a knife along to clean the meat off. The good news is that the bones are large so its easy to pick the meat off them, but not eat the bones.

When I clean collars, I just cut the those fins off where they connect to to the collar. The pelvic fins have a hard ray in them that you'll need kitchen shears or tin snips to cut. The pectoral can be cut with regular scissors. After you've removed those fins, its easy enough to pull the skin off with skinning pliers like you would with a catfish, if you desire. Start at the point where the collar had connected to the gill plate and pull down to remove the skin. Or not having those fins makes scaling the collar easier if you wish to keep the skin on to eat.

I'm glad to hear you saved them. There is a lot of meat in the collars. The noggins too. And ribs and belly for that matter. I've just about quit cut fish off the bone anymore; I cook them whole or they are pieced out and cooked with bones in - head included. Less waste is always better.

[Big Mike]

Thanks for the thoughtful input from both of you. I’d greatly prefer to eat my fish whole, alas my spouse has an aversion to fish bones that makes Superman seem like he loves kryptonite in comparison. I always save the belly for myself, the chefs lagniappe for cleaning the fish.

[Shady]

I also save the collars on most fish 17" and up (tog, speck, snakehead, striper, etc.). It's my favorite part of the fish. It has a different texture than the normal filet that is more like crab especially on striped bass. I usually just grill them or bake them. Even on a just legal striper there is a fair amount of meat in the collar area. Once I've filleted the fish normally, I find it relatively easy just to rip this part off of the fish. Here are some speck collar that I grilled earlier this year:
101583542_10106069891321115_4697247221572173824_o.jpg

And here is some striper collar flatbread from last week (for this one I grilled the collar then picked the meat out by hand and kind of shredded into crab meat sized chunks):
107436129_10106167258541425_7502207725317024972_o.jpg

[Big Mike]

Making me hungry. Those look delicious.

[nhunter344]

Making me hungry. Those look delicious.

x2 I dont usually eat fish but would make an exception for that!

[Yak Fish]

I cook them with old bay and garlic butter...well, when I keep fish. It's been so long I hardly remember cooking striper.
But the collars I think are some of the best meat on it.